Coming to know reflective practice: An ethnography of novice university teachers

This ethnography investigates the cultural construction of reflection about teaching. The central setting was a two-semester practicum and seminar course in college teaching for psychology Ph.D. candidates in their third year of study at a four-year public university, Key participants were two male and two female doctoral students. Other participants included the two tenured faculty members who supervised the practicum and seminar. Reflection was defined as the purposeful deliberation of anticipated and/or past teaching behavior, and included examination of relevant assumptions, values and beliefs. The purpose of the study was to describe and understand the reflective processes about teaching demonstrated by key participants operating within the setting. Methods included participant observation over two semesters of the practicum and seminar; semi-structured interviews; observation of participant teaching; and collection of teaching artifacts. Data analysis included construction of field notes and memos, the coding of information units, and the use of an interpretive framework on reflective thinking. Case studies were developed for each key participant using a narrative and analysis approach. This study revealed that participant reflection was influenced by a variety of factors, including the belief systems and experiences of participants, and the social and structural elements of the practicum and seminar. Individual participants demonstrated significantly different meanings of reflection, and their behaviors indicated that the development of reflective attitudes is a continuous negotiation between self and environment. The nature of problem framing emerged as a significant factor in determining the nature of reflective behavior. Results indicate a need for future inquiry into the elements influencing the reflective process of novice university teachers

Investigating the Impact of the FAVA Well-Being Protocol on Perceived Stress and Psychological Well-Being With At-Promise High School Students

An elevation in stress levels can be caused by many contributing factors, which can ultimately interfere with the learning of young people. Fortunately, an increase in well being can help promote resilience, creating a buffer to stress. Therefore, the current study investigated the influence of a positive psychology intervention aimed at lowering perceived stress and increasing well-being among at-promise students. The theoretical framework for this study was based on Ryff’s Model of Psychological Well-Being (PWB). The specific intervention used was the Well-being Therapy School Protocol developed by Fava and associates, based off of Carol Ryff’s Model of PWB (Fava, 2016). Well-Being therapy is fairly new and only a few studies have studied the effectiveness in school settings. Those studies took place with international samples and yielded positive results with students. The current study took place in the Southeastern part of the United States, with a high proportion of economically marginalized, African-American students that attended a high school with chronic attendance issues. The intervention was delivered through classroom lessons led by a professional school counselor, who serves a critical role in teaching mindsets and behaviors (ASCA, 2014). Participants completed two questionnaires: the Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983) and the 18-item Psychological Well-Being Scale (Ryff, 1989). Descriptive statistics and 2-way mixed factorial ANOVAs were conducted to answer each research question. In addition, one-way ANOVAs were used to seek improvements in perceived stress of female students. The results indicated an increase in overall well-being, as well as increases in environmental mastery and personal growth. There were no significant decreases in overall perceived stress for the combined participants. However, female students reported a significant decrease in perceived stress over time. The results of this study suggest Ryff’s Theory of Psychological Well-Being and the WBSP appears to be a useful framework that can be added to the professional school counselor’s intervention toolbox. Implications for school counseling practice and recommendations for future research are later discussed

Navigating Research Waters: The Research Mentor Program at the University of New Hampshire at Manchester

This essay uses a journal format to describe the research mentor program at the University of New Hampshire at Manchester (UNHM). Librarians, Learning Center staff, and writing instructors at UNHM have collaborated to train class-linked tutors to present basic library instruction in the classroom and to provide one-on-one research assistance to students in freshman-level composition classes. This information literacy initiative has expanded our students\u27 community of learning by providing them with point-of-need research assistance from knowledgeable peers

The ‘Infinite Bandwidth, Zero Latency’ Project: inventing a digital future

Policymakers around the world are promoting the development and roll out of superfast or next generation broadband networks. Rather less attention is given to how these networks might be used. This paper describes the approach developed in the ‘Infinite Bandwidth, Zero Latency’ project to engage diverse stakeholders in the generation of ideas for future applications, and forming consortia around selected ideas to develop them, to date, to the stage of feasibility study proposals. The project is based around the Imagine/Triple Task method of participative engagement

CRIME, LOCALITY AND MORALITY: MEMBERSHIP CATEGORISATION AND "NEWSWORTHINESS" IN LOCAL NEWSPAPERS

This thesis examines how the social interaction of reading local newspapers is accomplished in terms of "newsworthiness". This ethnomethodological study draws upon Harvey Sacks' work of membership categorisation analysis in order to demonstrate the work that members of society undertake whilst interpreting newspaper headlines. The analysis identifies members' use of devices and rules to understand that a crime has taken place, and that the crime has relevance to the local area, and could therefore be understood to be locally newsworthy. The study analyses newspaper headlines from two geographical locations; the South-East of London and the North of Ireland. A comparative analysis of the headlines shows that the reader is able to interpret categories in terms of breaches of morality through the selection of juxtaposition categories, and to differentiate between location and locality through the utilisation of local common-sense knowledge. Co-presence operates specifically, invoking the utilisation of common-sense geographies, local and regional common-sense knowledge(s), and contextual resources associated with reading a newspaper. The study focuses particularly upon the various detailed ways that locality and morality construct and configure the representation of crime. Furthermore, the analysis puts forward an empirically based methodology for analysing the utilisation of local common-sense within text, and therefore contributes to our understanding of how inference-rich locational categories (can) invoke interpretations which represent segregation or specificity within a locality

The diagnosis of inherited metabolic diseases by microarray gene expression profiling

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Inherited metabolic diseases (IMDs) comprise a diverse group of generally progressive genetic metabolic disorders of variable clinical presentations and severity. We have undertaken a study using microarray gene expression profiling of cultured fibroblasts to investigate 68 patients with a broad range of suspected metabolic disorders, including defects of lysosomal, mitochondrial, peroxisomal, fatty acid, carbohydrate, amino acid, molybdenum cofactor, and purine and pyrimidine metabolism. We aimed to define gene expression signatures characteristic of defective metabolic pathways.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Total mRNA extracted from cultured fibroblast cell lines was hybridized to Affymetrix U133 Plus 2.0 arrays. Expression data was analyzed for the presence of a gene expression signature characteristic of an inherited metabolic disorder and for genes expressing significantly decreased levels of mRNA.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>No characteristic signatures were found. However, in 16% of cases, disease-associated nonsense and frameshift mutations generating premature termination codons resulted in significantly decreased mRNA expression of the defective gene. The microarray assay detected these changes with high sensitivity and specificity.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In patients with a suspected familial metabolic disorder where initial screening tests have proven uninformative, microarray gene expression profiling may contribute significantly to the identification of the genetic defect, shortcutting the diagnostic cascade.</p

Metabolic profiles of male meat eaters, fish eaters, vegetarians, and vegans from the EPIC-Oxford cohort

Background: Human metabolism is influenced by dietary factors and lifestyle, environmental, and genetic factors; thus, men who exclude some or all animal products from their diet might have different metabolic profiles than meat eaters. Objective: We aimed to investigate differences in concentrations of 118 circulating metabolites, including acylcarnitines, amino acids, biogenic amines, glycerophospholipids, hexose, and sphingolipids related to lipid, protein, and carbohydrate metabolism between male meat eaters, fish eaters, vegetarians, and vegans from the Oxford arm of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. Design: In this cross-sectional study, concentrations of metabolites were measured by mass spectrometry in plasma from 379 men categorized according to their diet group. Differences in mean metabolite concentrations across diet groups were tested by using ANOVA, and a false discovery rate–controlling procedure was used to account for multiple testing. Principal component analysis was used to investigate patterns in metabolic profiles. Results: Concentrations of 79% of metabolites differed significantly by diet group. In the vast majority of these cases, vegans had the lowest concentration, whereas meat eaters most often had the highest concentrations of the acylcarnitines, glycerophospholipids, and sphingolipids, and fish eaters or vegetarians most often had the highest concentrations of the amino acids and a biogenic amine. A clear separation between patterns in the metabolic profiles of the 4 diet groups was seen, with vegans being noticeably different from the other groups because of lower concentrations of some glycerophospholipids and sphingolipids. Conclusions: Metabolic profiles in plasma could effectively differentiate between men from different habitual diet groups, especially vegan men compared with men who consume animal products. The difference in metabolic profiles was mainly explained by the lower concentrations of glycerophospholipids and sphingolipids in vegans

Circulating free testosterone and risk of aggressive prostate cancer : Prospective and Mendelian randomisation analyses in international consortia

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors. International Journal of Cancer published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of UICC.Previous studies had limited power to assess the associations of testosterone with aggressive disease as a primary endpoint. Further, the association of genetically predicted testosterone with aggressive disease is not known. We investigated the associations of calculated free and measured total testosterone and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) with aggressive, overall and early-onset prostate cancer. In blood-based analyses, odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for prostate cancer were estimated using conditional logistic regression from prospective analysis of biomarker concentrations in the Endogenous Hormones, Nutritional Biomarkers and Prostate Cancer Collaborative Group (up to 25 studies, 14 944 cases and 36 752 controls, including 1870 aggressive prostate cancers). In Mendelian randomisation (MR) analyses, using instruments identified using UK Biobank (up to 194 453 men) and outcome data from PRACTICAL (up to 79 148 cases and 61 106 controls, including 15 167 aggressive cancers), ORs were estimated using the inverse-variance weighted method. Free testosterone was associated with aggressive disease in MR analyses (OR per 1 SD = 1.23, 95% CI = 1.08-1.40). In blood-based analyses there was no association with aggressive disease overall, but there was heterogeneity by age at blood collection (OR for men aged <60 years 1.14, CI = 1.02-1.28; Phet =.0003: inverse association for older ages). Associations for free testosterone were positive for overall prostate cancer (MR: 1.20, 1.08-1.34; blood-based: 1.03, 1.01-1.05) and early-onset prostate cancer (MR: 1.37, 1.09-1.73; blood-based: 1.08, 0.98-1.19). SHBG and total testosterone were inversely associated with overall prostate cancer in blood-based analyses, with null associations in MR analysis. Our results support free testosterone, rather than total testosterone, in the development of prostate cancer, including aggressive subgroups.Peer reviewe